


Hagane

by Mellythedork



Category: Metal Fight Beyblade | Beyblade: Metal Fusion
Genre: Doji crossed several, Gen, Koma Village is a spiritual place, There are lines you shouldn't cross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:27:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24789988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellythedork/pseuds/Mellythedork
Summary: There are many secrets hidden within the history of Koma Village. Some are not as pleasant as others.But Ryo will carry them as long as he has to if it means protecting his son and everyone else he loves.
Kudos: 9





	Hagane

**Author's Note:**

> This came from a dream and I immediately fell in love with it.
> 
> I then immediately wrote it.
> 
> (Then had to wait for the internet to come back on so I could get here)

It was an odd thing to look at your own grave.

Well, Ryo supposed he could have had it removed – Hokuto and the boys had mentioned the idea often enough. But it never felt right.

Ryo knew he’d made several mistakes the day he allowed Lightning L-Drago to be taken. He’d failed his ancestors, he’d failed his friends, and worst of all he’d failed his son.

Those mistakes weren’t something he wanted to forget. They were something he wanted to look back on and grow from, look back on and remind himself that just as Gingka had found, going it alone wasn’t the answer.

He and Gingka still had a lot of things to work out, that was true. But he’d keep trying.

He was a Hagane, after all. No matter the circumstances, a Hagane never gave up.

Feeling the cold mountain chill, Ryo adjusted his coat and began to make his way back to the village. It would be dark soon, and it was best not to get caught in it no matter who he was or what he knew.

The mountains were never kind to those who overstepped their boundaries.

* * *

Ryo blinked.

He still wasn’t sure of what he was seeing, so he blinked again.

Nope, that wasn’t working. This time he rubbed his eyes.

It was still there.

 _Well,_ he thought worriedly, _this can’t be good._

When you grow up in a village as spiritual as Koma Village, you pick up some things. Things you shouldn’t do, places you shouldn’t go, people that weren’t really people and you shouldn’t talk to them no matter what.

A grave turning into a miniature shrine, however...that was a new one.

He was smart enough not to try to move it. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he should touch it. But something told him to kneel down, to pull the cord that rang the little bell, and to sit there for a moment in silence.

It began to grow colder.

Images flashed through his mind of a darkness, a twisted mind, an escape from death. Even in his coat and gloves, Ryo felt the chill in his bones. As the images faded he was left there breathing harshly, _something_ now with him as the wind picked up in a place it shouldn’t have been able to reach.

With dread in his gut, Ryo realized that something was trying to warn him.

Rushing back to the village to speak to Hokuto about this, Ryo didn’t notice until later the irony of one past mistake warning him about the consequences of another.

* * *

Hokuto had confirmed his suspicions; not even a week later, Yuki Mizusawa appeared in the city. His story of Nemesis and its cult, its return after thousands of years to destroy the earth – something in Ryo stirred angrily at it, but he was certain that the anger wasn’t his.

After the kids had left on their journey, Ryo soon left on one of his own.

He didn’t know where he was going, just that he was being told to, and refusing was beyond the dumbest thing he could possibly do. That _something_ kept stirring within him, cold and unforgiving, and all he could do was promise it that whatever it was after, he’d take it there.

That’s what you did with spirits. When they gave you a task, you followed it no matter what.

The kids went to Indonesia, to China. Ryo found himself across the ocean, visiting South America, then traveling up to Central America. Still the spirit raged, growing more violent as he got closer to his goal – whatever it was. Only October it might’ve been, but Ryo felt like he was eternally trapped in the winter solstice, the spirit’s freezing energy even stronger than Fireblaze’s heat.

He was starting to gather the pieces and figure out exactly what was going on. This spirit only had two people it could be after. Two people it would use him to get to.

Gingka and his friends had found one of them already. It clearly wasn’t him.

Which meant that against the odds, against nature, against everything human, _he_ had survived.

And the mountain wasn’t too happy about that.

* * *

Growing up in a mountain village you didn’t learn too much about ancient cultures outside your own, but Ryo knew Mayan temples when he saw them. Yuki had mentioned the Mayans in his original explanation of why he’d come to find Gingka, so he had the feeling he knew exactly why the spirit had brought him here.

It didn’t take long for his suspicions to be proven correct.

Unhinged and full of superiority came a laugh that he knew. Doji, alive but _changed,_ appeared to greet him.

The spirit grew colder. Ryo could see his breath in front of him as Doji went on about something or another – he couldn’t hear the man over the sound of the spirit’s rage. While part of him was dismayed by this, as he might’ve been missing valuable information about the cult of Nemesis, he knew there was nothing he could do.

Not yet.

“So! My dear _friend._ ” Doji’s voice broke through. “What brings you all the way out here in the first place? I wouldn’t dare to guess you’ve come to join us after all that’s happened.”

Well, at least he wasn’t blind. Or actually – maybe he was, since the frost now growing on the plants around them was a striking white against green. Yet he went on without a care as the spirit began releasing its power.

Doji was completely oblivious to the spirit’s warning. Ryo tightened his grip on Fireblaze in his pocket as he began to shudder from the weight of the cold.

 _Don’t speak,_ he felt. _Not yet._

Ryo obeyed.

“Hm? You’ve come all this way just to stand there? Well, I suppose now that you and those little brats have destroyed my bey there’s not a lot more we can do here is there?” That grin wasn’t leaving Doji’s face. Ryo became more and more aware of the unnatural shadows around him, hinting further at what the other man’s path had led him to.

Total darkness. A full eclipse.

The black sun.

Whether he had been part of the cult before his raid of Koma Village or if he’d been saved and recruited after Battle Bladers, Ryo had no way of knowing. But he supposed he wasn’t here to _know._

He was just the carrier and the messenger here. Nothing more.

Ryo was starting to lose feeling in his fingers. Slowly, winds from nowhere began to pick up, and Doji finally ceased his jabbering and noticed something was amiss.

 _Now,_ he felt.

Ryo clung to Fireblaze like it was a tiny ember in a roaring blizzard. He did as he was told.

“What’s this? What’ve you brought here, you-”

“Do you know the name of the mountain you tried to kill me in?”

“What?” Doji seemed incredulous. The wind grew stronger.

“The mountain’s name. The sacred mountain of my village, my family. Tell me what it is.”

Apparently deciding to humor him, Doji’s reply was calm. “I do believe it would be Mount _Hagane,_ yes? Are you so brain-damaged you’ve forgotten your own name?”

Ryo could feel the wind pushing at him now, blowing through his hair and snapping at his pants. Doji’s long coat was being battered and his hat – well, there it went.

“That’s right. Mount Hagane. Ryo Hagane. You tried to kill a Hagane in that mountain. Do you know what that means?”

“Excuse me?”

“It means that no matter what power you’ve gotten, you made a grave mistake.”

The wind howled – but only near Doji. Ryo tried to calm his chattering teeth and finish his task.

“I’ve come here to tell you that Mount Hagane has something to say to you.”

Before Doji could release the laughter about to overtake him at how ridiculous he found this confrontation, the wind got to him first. That laugh became a cry of alarm as Doji’s feet left the ground, he was thrown this way and that, and the wind carried him far into the sky with a roar of icy madness.

Even if he wasn’t the recipient, Ryo felt the message was pretty clear.

With the spirit’s attention on its victim, Ryo started feeling warmth again for the first time in days. Fireblaze lent him its strength, letting its heat course through him, gentle and healing. Both shuddering and chattering finally ceased.

His part was done. Once the spirit had finished what it came to do, it would return to the mountain on its own.

Free at last, Ryo cast his eyes to the sky and to the flailing Doji for just a second or two before releasing a breath, turning around, and beginning the trek back to modern civilization. Gingka should soon have news about the legendary blader of China and he didn’t want to worry his son by not being able to answer his call. It was bad enough he couldn’t explain why he wasn’t in his office.

But there were some things that he felt his son wasn’t quite ready to know about their home just yet. He was still young, still protected. He didn’t need the burden of every truth.

But Ryo knew. And Ryo would carry those truths and any spirit he had to if it was to keep his family and his home safe. That was what it meant to be a Hagane.

If you were a Hagane, you protected your own…

...even after death.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't believe that Doji will be the one to find Rago in this timeline. Just a hunch.
> 
> Edit: ALSO THANK YOU GOOD NICE LOVELY FRIEND FOR THIS ART!!!!!!! YOU ARE WONDERFUL!!!!  
> https://artisadie.tumblr.com/


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